


Moving Day

by Sheeana



Category: Young Avengers
Genre: F/M, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-21
Updated: 2013-03-21
Packaged: 2017-12-05 23:49:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/729285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheeana/pseuds/Sheeana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was only fifty bucks, Tommy reasoned. Eli wouldn't miss fifty bucks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moving Day

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Tommy/Kate week on tumblr, for the theme of "friendship." Takes place when everyone on the team is about 19-20.

"What the hell, Tommy?"

"Calm down, dude."

"No, I mean it. What the hell?" Eli shouted. His wallet hit the wall with a resounding slapping sound after he threw it, which normally would have had Tommy on the floor in stitches. Apparently he wasn't in a rolling around on the floor laughing kind of mood right now.

"Whatever. It was only fifty bucks," he said, rolling his eyes.

"It wasn't yours!"

"Whatever. Not like you were using it for anything awesome."

"Eli," Kate said cautiously, as she entered the room they used for training these days, "Tommy. What's going on?"

"He stole fifty bucks from me!"

"I _borrowed_ fifty bucks. I was gonna give it back. Eventually. Probably."

"Tommy!" Kate said. She rounded on Tommy, her eyebrows raised. He hated that look. It was his least favorite look of all the Kate-looks there were. It was probably supposed to mean she was disappointed in him, but since they started dating he'd figured out that it actually meant she thought he was the worst person ever.

"What?" he asked, trying to sound nonchalant as he shrugged a bit. Look innocent, maybe they'd leave him alone. Yeah, right. He'd been a Young Avenger for too long now to think they'd ever leave him alone about anything.

"Young Avengers don't steal from each other!" And that was the one thing Tommy couldn't stand hearing. Young Avengers don't. Yeah, well Young Avengers didn't stand around and listen to this crap, either.

"Whatever," he muttered under his breath. He tossed a crunched up wad of bills at Eli's feet on his way out of the room, pausing at the doorway just long enough to say, "There's your fifty bucks. Go buy yourself a life or whatever."

-

"So Eli's still-" Tommy heaved the tentacle over his shoulder and threw it away as hard as he could. It made a sick sucking sound as it bounced on the pavement. Tommy made a face. "Still pissed off, huh?"

"You did steal from him," Kate pointed out. She fired an arrow right into the center of one of the suction cups. The tentacle recoiled and slapped Tommy in the head, which sent him flying. Luckily – which was a word Tommy had long ago stopped using in the sense it was actually supposed to mean – he landed on another tentacle, so it didn't hurt too much. He peeled himself off the suction cup and then turned around to give the tentacle a good kick before it got anywhere near Kate. As a general rule, he didn't like tentacles near his girlfriend. In fact, it was more than a general rule.

"It was fifty bucks. I was gonna give it back," he said.

"Maybe if you'd asked him-" Kate whirled around to send an arrow straight through one of the tentacles that was about to encircle Tommy. He flashed her a grin and a thumbs-up and then rolled to her left to grab one that was at her feet and throw it away.

"I was gonna give it back. I swear."

"You can't just take someone's money. If you needed to borrow some, you could have asked me."

"Yeah, 'cause you're loaded, so whatever, right? You can just hand out money like it's free, so why don't I just let you buy me stuff. Since I'm your boy."

"Tommy," Kate said, placating, and Tommy would probably have stayed mad at her for awhile if she hadn't suddenly gotten that look in her eyes that meant _duck now_. He obeyed out of pure instinct, and then she fired five arrows successively into a row of giant suction cups that had just been about to make Tommy's day really awful. Good thing he had an awesome girlfriend with a bow. So yeah, maybe he could drop the being-mad thing. The being-alive thing seemed to balance everything out.

Score: Tommy 0, Kate 5.

-

"Hey, idiot," Tommy said in rote, customary greeting, when Billy came into the lounge in their hideout. Kate didn't like it when he called it a hideout anymore, since they were adults now, but he figured there was a crappiness limit on using the word headquarters to describe a place. This place was at least eight levels of crappy too high to be called a headquarters without an eye-roll along with it.

"And I'm gone," Billy said, throwing his hands up in the air and turning to leave.

"... No, wait. C'mon." Tommy patted the worn-out cushion beside himself. It had seen better days. This whole place had seen better days.

"Fine." Billy sat beside him and drew his legs up onto the couch, and then they sat there in silence for awhile. This brothers thing was weird and complicated sometimes.

"So," Tommy said, when Billy didn't seem to know what to do and it was starting to get super awkward.

"So. ... Why are you here, anyway?" Billy asked.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Why are you hanging out here all the time?"

"Oh. Yeah. No reason," Tommy said nonchalantly, wiggling his bare toes on the ancient couch cushions. Billy shook his head.

"No reason. You just like it here? Nice decor?"

"That's a stupid word."

"What, decor?"

"Yeah."

"Decor," Billy repeated slowly. "Anyway, if you broke the door of your apartment again, you can come stay with me and Teddy."

"Nah, it's cool." Since I don't have an apartment, Tommy added silently. Turns out landlords didn't like it when you exploded a section of the wall to get into the next apartment to check on the kids who had been crying for hours straight. They also didn't like it when you didn't pay rent, which was how he lost the apartment before that, or when you told them they were fucking stupid, which was how he lost the one before that.

"Okay, but the offer stands," Billy said. "If you ever feel like it."

Then they lapsed into slightly less awkward silence, which gave Tommy time to think. It wasn't like living in the hideout was bad. It was a lot better than living on the street. Warm, at least. Usually private once everyone went home. He could eat out whenever he scrounged up enough money. There were worse places to live. Tommy knew because he'd lived in a lot of them. He'd just mess up Billy and Teddy's lives if he moved in with them, though. He always did. He'd finally learned to just not get involved when he knew how it was going to turn out.

It was one of those immovable facts of the universe, or something. Tommy Shepherd messes things up.

-

About a week later he was walking through the training area around midnight when he heard a loud bang, and his head snapped up. Eli was standing there, his shield at his feet. For a second he looked like Tommy had caught him doing something embarrassing, but then he just bent down to pick up the shield he'd obviously forgotten after training.

"It's midnight," Tommy said.

"Yeah, so what are you doing here, Tommy?"

"... Training?" Tommy said hopefully.

"Go home," Eli said, half-closing his eyes in frustrated exhaustion. 

"You go home," Tommy said, glaring.

Eli didn't budge. He was giving Tommy a skeptical look, like he was about to pull out that knowing sarcasm he used whenever he was sure he had the upper hand. The look that meant he knew what was going on. Tommy's cheeks flushed and he retreated to the lounge, slammed the door, and went to bed. On the couch, because there was no bed to sleep on. It was still better than sleeping outside.

-

A loud banging against the door woke Tommy up the next morning. He scrambled to pull the thin blanket over his head and then ended up falling off the couch, but he was on his feet in less than a heartbeat.

"Coming, coming," he grumbled, and really, this was dumb. Whoever it was probably had a key. He opened the door and opened his mouth to snap at-

-Kate, standing in the rain, her hair plastered to her face, her clothes soaked through and unfortunately very, very opaque. And she was still the prettiest thing he'd ever seen.

"Kate-" he started to say, confused.

"First of all, you're the worst person ever," Kate informed him, before he could get another word out. "Second, you can't live here. Third, apologize to Eli. Fourth, you _can't live here_."

"Okay, okay," Tommy said. "Fine, I got it. I can't live here. I'll... figure something out."

Kate rolled her eyes.

"Get your ass in my car."

"What?" 

"I'm not saying it again."

"... Okay? My ass is getting in your car. Does that mean you were thinking about my-" Kate was glaring at him. "Never mind. Ass in car. Got it."

-

"Here," Kate said, when she had him on a doorstep to an apartment that definitely seemed too big to be real, even from the outside. She was holding out a key. Tommy wasn't sure he understood. Well, maybe he was sure he understood, but he wasn't sure he liked it.

"I told you not to," he said unhappily. "I told you I-"

"I didn't," Kate said simply.

"Yeah? Then what? Magical fairies paid for it? Whatever, I'm leaving-"

"No, Tommy," said Kate, reaching for his arm and gently closing her fingers around it. "I didn't. You did. You remember that little boy you pulled out of that portal last month? His parents own the building."

"I don't want charity."

"It's not charity. They wanted to repay you. But fine, I'll call them up and tell them you didn't like it."

"I didn't say-... you're horrible. Got that? Horrible," Tommy complained. But he took the key.

-

In the afternoon, he leaned out of the window to peer up, blinking rain out of his eyes. The building went up for five storeys, and above that he could see the grey sky. A row of trees lined the opposite side of the street. The air was fresh and clean. Not because it was actually any different from the air near the hideout, but because he lived here. It was his.

As he pulled himself back into the apartment – his apartment – he bumped into something. Startled, he turned around, dripping wet, and found a box sitting on the windowsill where he'd just been perched. He picked it up and leaned out over it to find Eli standing outside, hands on his waist.

"That's yours, right?"

"... Yeah?" Tommy said, glancing down at it and recognizing it from the boxes he'd stored in a back room in the hideout. "And?"

"And here's another one," Eli said, holding a second box up.

Dumbfounded, Tommy put the first one down and accepted that one, and then Eli was holding up a third. If there had ever been a moment when Tommy would describe himself as mystified, it was now. He could probably count on his fingers the number of times Eli had gone out of his way to help him. Or, no, he was lying, but he could count on his fingers the number of times Eli had done it when he felt Tommy owed him an apology.

"Thanks?" he said, when Eli had handed him the fourth and final box of stuff Tommy owned.

"No problem," Eli replied, as if they hadn't spent the last two weeks constantly being pissed off at each other. "See you at training tomorrow. Don't be late."

Tommy rolled his eyes.

-

It didn't take long to unpack. It didn't take Tommy long to do anything, but he also only owned four boxes of stuff, and one of them was almost entirely filled with old movies. When he got to the bottom of the third box, he found an envelope taped to the cardboard. He picked it up, a grin slowly starting to spread across his face as he pulled out five ten dollar bills and read Eli's sharp, angular handwriting:

_Go buy yourself whatever._

-

"So I was thinking," he said, as he lay on his back on his brand new bed and stared up at the ceiling. Kate shifted onto her stomach with Tommy's arms still around her, so she could lean up on her arms a bit and meet his eyes.

"Please don't do that. It's never a good thing. Emphasis on never."

"I was thinking," Tommy repeated, playfully nudging her shoulder with his shoulder. "Got myself my own place now. We should probably – what's the word – christen it? Is that the word? The one that means I get to have sex with you now?"

"You're- mmf," Kate replied, interrupted by Tommy's lips against hers. Apparently she didn't have a very good argument against that-one-thing-that-meant-he-got-to-have-sex with her, because her arms came up around his neck as he rolled over, and then she was above him, and then he was pretty happy.

Actually, no. He'd been pretty happy before that, too.

Score: Tommy 1, Kate 105.


End file.
